Barnaby Joyce (New England, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The biggest issue confronting our nation in the coming years will be our relationship to China and how it will work with a superpower that is not a democracy like the United States of America. As we've seen through the regime that runs China, with its dealings with the Uyghur people and its issues with regard to the incursion into Indian territory, in the South China Sea, this is going to be absolutely implicit, and it has to be absolutely extolled that we have to give to our children the strongest nation we possibly can. If the United States of America basically loses influence and goes on a slide, we are going to be here in our section of the world basically on our lonesome. What is part of doing that? How do we do that? I think Australia has tied itself too much in benevolent regulatory tape that actually impedes our capacity to grow as a nation. We are doing it in a range of forms, including some of our climate policies. We are marching down a road that might be applicable to Europe and the issues that are facing Europe or facing other nations, but they're not the biggest issues facing our nation.

We do it in other areas as well. We do it in everything from water policy to where we try to construct a dam, and all the time we are butting our heads against people whose only goal is to try and stop it. They try and stop us from increasing our capacity to assist our biggest export, which is fossil fuels. They stop it when we try to construct a dam. We are now going to a position in our nation where Altona has closed down. We're going back to two refineries. Vales Point is no longer upgrading. Our power capacity is reducing. Our capacity to build dams by reason of our own green legislation is impeded. And this is not going to assist us. There has to be an epiphany in our nation where we understand: what is our real challenge going forward? We must immerse ourselves in the real challenge that is before us. I don't know what will happen in 2050, in the future. What I'm very aware of is what's happening right now, and when we hear about a major city in a place such as Daru, off our coast, we should really wake up as to exactly what our challenge is now.